BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iraq's new president called Sunday for extending amnesty to Iraqi insurgents who had killed combatants, possibly including U.S. and Iraqi troops, as part of a drive that he said could help end attacks within months.

Jalal Talabani, speaking on his first day of work in the white and gilt presidential offices after his inauguration Thursday, excluded clemency for al-Qaida and other foreign armed groups operating here.

As for killings by Iraqi insurgents, Talabani said, "There are two kinds of killing: In battle or in action, this could be covered by the amnesty. Those who are involved in killing innocent people, detonation of car bombs, killing people in mosques and in churches, these would not be covered by the amnesty."

Talabani did not say specifically whether the amnesty would apply to fighters who had killed U.S. and other foreign troops as well as Iraqi forces, nor did he elaborate on how an amnesty program would work.

Talabani said amnesty must be only part of a program that draws Iraqi insurgents into efforts to build a democracy, strengthen the economy, diminish public support for insurgents and block their attacks militarily.

Leaders in the government increasingly have drawn a line between Iraqi insurgent groups, with which they will seek common ground, and foreign groups, with which they won't.

"It is essential that we separate those who came from outside the country, like all those organizations affiliated with al-Qaida, from Iraqis," said Talabani, a Kurdish former rebel leader and a Sunni Muslim elected last week by the new National Assembly. "We must seek to win over the Iraqis to the democratic process going on in the country and fight the criminal gangs" from outside the country.





Also Sunday, the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed to have kidnapped and killed Najaf police Brig. Gen. Bassem Mohammed Kadhim al-Jazaari while he was visiting Baghdad.